Sunday, 12 January 2014

Looks like a beautiful
day today so grab your coat (-and hat and gloves-) and get down to
the London Ice Scultpting Festival at Canary Wharf for something a
little bit magical that you won't see every day. (Nearest tube Canary
Wharf.)

Witnessing a person
with a chainsaw and a pick axe attack a gigantic block of ice, in the
creative act of producing an object of beauty before your very eyes,
simply does something for the soul. The precision and detail,
sometimes with seemingly gravity-defying, intentional lop-sidedness
arouses a sense of wonder in one who watches too much television and
is normally stuck in the muddy mundaneness of life. We were there all
afternoon and into the evening and I don't think I checked my phone
once. Today is the final day so you will see the finished, competing,
international entries.

Food? Yes, a wide array
of cuisines including curried goat, hot chorizo sandwiches, Thai
curries, Ethiopian stews and lots of vegetarian options in between,
not to mention French patisserie.

Other Stuff?
Yes, FlameOz fire show, a fun 15 minute show which does what it says
on the tin.

Suitable for children? Yes. I took my 11 year old who loved it and saw lots of littler ones not looking miserable too.

Facilities? The
cleanest, poshest portaloos I have ever visited in my life.

Free? Yes

Fab? Yes, again.

Tube? Canary Wharf. Check which lines
are operating before you go. I had to take Bakerloo from South Kenton instead of normal Jubilee from Stanmore but it was worth it.

Wednesday, 8 January 2014

For about a year,
Mini-Me had been nagging to allow her to download a game on her
tablet called Minecraft. Now, I'm not really a point blank
kind of person. I tend to listen and look at things from the
plaintiff's point of view and then offer reasons for my verdict,
whether it's a “No” or a “Yes!” and especially when it's a
“Maybe”. However in this case, my answer was always point blank
“No”. It only recently became “Yes”, after I allowed Mini-Me
to explain what Minecraft is. That is: a game based on
building things out of blocks in a virtual world, a bit like online
Lego or something (-yawn...) I realised that I had got Minecraft
confused with World of Warcraft. I
remembered once reading an article about how horrendously violent
World of Warcraft was.

Now, doubting myself
whilst writing this column (-it happens frequently,) I have just
“asked the google” (as my parents refer to this procedure) about
the suitability of World of Warcraft for kids and the google
said that the minimum age to play it is 13. In light of this
discovery, I must admit that it is entirely possible that I got World
of Warcraft in turn, mixed up with Tour of Duty which is
about war and is violent. Isn't it?? Okay, I just asked the google
(because I couldn't help myself) who said Tour of Duty is a TV
programme and Call of Duty is a game. I cannot spend any more
time asking the google about these things because it will NEVER END.
When I compile an anthology of all these columns one day, it will
probably be called “Six degrees of confusion” because that is
what it's like in this head but you need to double it because there's
actually currently12 and it increases exponentially as Mini-Me gets
older.

I know little about
this weird, social media world that my child is growing up in. Worse,
I actually thought I was fairly aware, being that I have a Sing and
Sign page on Facebook and two weeks ago even created a Sing
and Sign account on Twitter (@AngeSingandSign). At risk of
sounding like Bridget Jones I currently have 56 followers on that and
about 15 on @appleina (come and play with me!) I'm really good with
Excel and Word and Publisher and Powerpoint, so Mini-Me always
thought I was some kind of omniscient genius when it came to
computers and I didn't try to counter this belief because I enjoy
inspiring awe in my kid (even misplaced awe – it's still awe and
clearly, it won't last...)

But now, with she at
nearly 12 and me at (...mumbles incomprehensibly into coffee...)
we are reaching a tipping point where she is overtaking me. It was
inevitable. I know I need to stay on top of what's going on and be
aware and in the know. It says so on the NSPCC Online Safety page
that I saw on Twitter. However, although Mini-Me wants to sit
and show me how Minecraft works, (“It's so wonderful; it really
encourages my creativity! I'm mining for iron ore! I'm making wool
for curtains from sheep!”) I keep putting it off because it sounds
r-e-a-l-l-y … b-o-r-i-n-g (- sorry darling, I know you are reading
this).

Now
she wants instagram. Nope. Why? “Because I don't want
you putting up pictures of yourself or me or the reconstituted
leftovers I fixed for dinner last night.” And also snapchat.
Nope. Why? “Because of
a dizzying myriad of possible horrifications that could result.”
Many of her friends have these apps on their gadget phones. But I
don't care. I am smugly glad that she has a basic phone and am trying
to stretch its use out for another year by which time I will be fully
conversant in Minecraft, instagram and snapchat and related
virtual activities, having created Sing and Sign accounts on all of
them.

Y'know, I am a
glass-half-full typa' person and there is an up side to this growing
tech-saviness. Because now, when my mum phones to tell me she has
lost all her emails (you haven't!), can't find the facebook shortcut
on her tablet (it's THERE!) or wants to listen to obscure French
radio but nothing is working (dunno!) I can pass her over to The New
Tech Guy aka Mini-Me and if she doesn't know what to do, she can
perfectly well ask the google!

More from the edge at
mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Tweet @appleina.

Angelina runs Sing and
Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and
Rickmansworth. www.singandsign.com.
You can also follow @AngeSingandSign on Twitter